Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Bobby Jindal, WTF? GOPLifer |

As I entered the law school yesterday Bobby Jindal was saying the usual stupid stuff about "political correctness", the dangers of "Sharia law", etc. This is how you get the white racist vote in Louisiana, I guess. - gwcBobby Jindal, WTF? GOP Liferby Chris Ladd"Why do smart Republicans say stupid things? It’s the central political question of our era and it demands an answer.
In London Monday Bobby Jindal built an entire speech on the idiotic premise, already disavowed by Fox News, that European cities include sections specifically ceded to Islamic extremists. That isn’t even the dumbest thing he said. He repeated all the usual racist tropes about how Muslims fail to “disavow” violence, implying rather strongly and ignorantly that they do not. He also launched into a surprising diatribe about the mortal danger posed by immigrants who refuse to “assimilate.” There are only two credible explanations for this speech. Either Jindal is an idiot in the Michele Bachmann mold, or he is making a cynical, calculated career decision to abandon credibility in pursuit of power. Let’s be absolutely clear – Bobby Jindal is not stupid. He’s a Brown University graduate in Biology who went on to complete a degree at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Jindal has in the past flirted with the idea of coming out of the closet as a smart person by suggesting once that Republicans should stop saying stupid things. In that speech two years ago he chastised the party for embracing precisely the kind of “identity politics” he so forcefully endorsed on Monday.
Being a smart guy he has apparently come to some conclusions about his career. He learned some lessons from his experience trying to be a principled leader."